Category: Gaming

Creating a Character

I love character creation. In pretty much any game no matter how large or small the options are, I love the way I can (at least some what) customize my character in order to suit my mood of the day (or some other theme I have going on). Yesterday I decided to play around a little more in Champions Online – I absolutely love their character creation, but at times it can leave me feeling a little lost, because my head is not already bursting with ideas for super heroes.

To the right is Silhouette.

I haven’t finished fleshing out a background story for her quite yet, but it certainly fit my mood yesterday and I had a lot of fun creating her. Once I was done character creation I popped into game intending on setting up the UI and key bindings to my liking, but for some reason it wasn’t recognizing that I wanted to bind the number pad 8 key to walk forward (or any other number pad key for that matter) so I quickly grew frustrated. Even though I’ve played quite a selection of games over the past few years I still like to play a particular way – in fact maybe even more so now because I’ve been playing for so many years and while a lot of the keys may not be similar, I am typically able to at least bind the movement keys into a comfortable position.

I am not your typical WASD gamer, I play with the number pad for movement (I also dislike mouse clicking) and switching takes time for me to get used to. Since I couldn’t seem to re-bind the keys last night (it simply wasn’t recognizing them, for whatever reason) I decided to log out early. It took me a few hours to create the character I wanted to begin with, so I was pretty tired by the end of it.

Champions Online is not my typical MMO. I’ve never been an enormous super hero fan – but I really do enjoy trying new things and I’m always pleasantly surprised when a game that does not fall under my ‘usual’ category ends up enticing me into playing for a length of time. The depth and time it takes for me to create a character certainly players into that, I can develop a sort of ‘bond’ with my character, and relate to her (no, I don’t dress all in black and red with chains wrapped around me and my eyes peeking out from a hooded mask but wouldn’t that be awesome?!) in some odd way.

It was still a relaxing evening, and I’m looking forward to exploring more today!

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you.

DDOU – Another Shot

I played DDO not that long ago, writing a review for MMORPG about the newly revamped starter area (I no longer write reviews, or at least I try not to as it’s simply not my style of writing and I don’t have a thick enough skin for that sort of business). At the time, I did not enjoy the game. I was on an older machine that ran the game poorly, the controls were unfamiliar to me, and there were multiple other facets that I just didn’t enjoy in the least. I made no secret that I did not enjoy the game which of course brought the masses down upon me flogging me for my dislike.

I have no issue giving games a second (or third or fourth) try in order to see if it will eventually grow on me. When EQ2 first came out it didn’t hook me right away either. When EQ came into my gaming vision I was happily playing MUDS and it took me a good while to start playing on a regular basis.

I beta tested DDOU for a while, though I didn’t make it in game nearly as much as I would have liked, and I found that if I revamped almost all of my command keys, the game was a little more enjoyable. If I tweaked the graphic settings, again it was a little more enjoyable. Playing in the beta gave me early access yesterday when the new free to play version of the game went live, and I decided to create a character on the new server that opened, Connith (I may have the name of that server spelled wrong, it’s early and I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention I was so excited).

Sticking with my elf, I noticed you can pay money to unlock two other races. I decided to choose a cleric again, something I’m most comfortable with. Thus Stargrace the Warpriest of Siberys was born.

The more I started to play and run around dungeons exploring, the more I found myself enjoying the game. The community was exceptionally friendly, answering questions and comments from veterans and fresh players alike. There were more people running around then I had ever seen before, masses of them during off peek hours. It was great.

An hour went by and I started thinking of a character background for my cleric, giving her a history and character traits. I enjoy having my characters come to live in that manor, and it was something I did not expect to happen while playing DDO so the effect caught me off guard. I giggled to myself as I ran around breaking sarcophagus looking for coins (or the odd skeleton) and shouted battle cries to the empty (thankfully) living room as I charged diseased rats and spiders.

Why the sudden change of heart towards a game I had always viewed as one of the worst games I’d ever played?

I’m really not sure. Game mechanics and the starting area haven’t changed since last I played. I did spend a good amount of time customizing things this time around so they were more comfortable to me which was a huge help, but could that be all it took?

The friendly community was a huge part in this new found love, so I can only assume it was a combination of things yesterday that had me playing and enjoying the game as much as I did.

I’m unsure at this point how far you can get on the free to play model before you’ll want to have to start forking out money, but it’s certainly a lot of fun. I plan on posting more in depth looks at the game as I continue along, and as I learn and discover things. Main game of choice? No, EQ2 will probably hold that spot for some time to come, but there’s always room for another game (or two or three).

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Shield! I finally got a Shield

Last night against all odds almost everyone was online (aside from Calreth who can typically only log on during the weekends) – so it was Ultann, Hamal, Wpus (on his berserker Ibeogur) and I who decided to venture down to the basement of Sebilis once more in the hopes that the Spore King would drop the fabled shield. We had one small incident on our way down, I flew through a water pipe and ended up dropping down on a bunch of mobs after Ultann had been dispelled which made for one very squashed group. Thankfully the revive point happens to be downstairs so we didn’t have to run back, and we picked ourselves back up and were on our way once more.

Earlier on in the day Ibeogur tanked Vaults (Jarsath Waste version) for us for the first time – even though he was only level 76 and he was trying to keep agro off of a mythical assassin, he did fantastic (well, we all did, as we trio’d the zone). It was a lot of fun even though nothing of use ended up dropping.

We made it to the Spore Kings room, killed him – and a metal chest dropped. My heart was in my throat. Would this be the day I actually won a shield – or was this just a teaser chest with a master spell in it like we usually get teased with.

Kasul popped open the chest and finally after months of wearing a fairly horrible shield, I won the beautiful one on the left. Sure, it’s not the one from Obelisk of Ahkzul (which I have all but given up on) but that one is legendary and not fabled. I was exceptionally happy and made sure to thank all of my guild mates for making the trip down to the basement. Ibeogur managed to ding 77 before we headed down there, and he had used a potion that we didn’t want to waste, so we decided since we were already in Sebilis we may as well complete Crypt of Agony. It was a relaxing run though the loot Gods were not smiling on us, it was another great chunk of exp for Ibeogur.

His potion was not quite done by then and we all had a little time left so we decided to make a quick trip to Deep Forge and see how we fared. My mystic has the necklace that allows you to see the TSO shinies, so for the first time I was able to harvest them as we made our way through the zone. We didn’t have any issues – but again the loot Gods were not very nice to us and we didn’t see anything of any real use drop. It was a good run none the less and we did get a handful of shards for our efforts (in this case a handful = 2).

All in all it was a pretty productive night. Ibeogur managed to inch his way through most of level 77, the experience is VERY slow, hopefully it picks up for him. I logged off early and decided to get some cross stitching done before bed (it’s very relaxing!) and hopefully everyone had a fantastic time. I’m looking forward to all of us being able to explore a little more together, it hasn’t happened nearly enough lately.

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you!

Sebilis Hates Me

Last night was another one of those rare occasions when a few of us from Torrent Knights (my casual guild on Antonia Bayle) were actually around. Ultann was finished work, Hamal had the day off, and while Wpus was sleeping getting ready for another night, I was in game for once. Ultann suggested we head down to Sebilis, and take on the Spoor King who drops a very nice healer shield. I’ve posted before about my luck with shields – I simply have none. I’ve ran Obelisk of Ahkzul more times then I can count, and in all my raids and adventures the best shield I’ve managed to grab for this poor healer is one legendary from RoK that’s pretty sad looking.

Little did we know that the Spore King is actually on a pretty hefty timer, so while we did kill him once we made our way to the bottom floor of the zone – we waited around for another two hours and never saw him. Two other named respawned within that time frame and we had multiple encounters with other mobs, but alas, no Spore King.

I don’t mind camping mobs that have place holders – but I’m not really a fan of camping mobs on timers that take so very long. The same can be said about the Head Butler in Mistmoor Catacombs, back when EoF was the lead expansion that butler used to be heavily camped for his set piece (because he always drops it). He’s on a specific 1 hour timer, no place holder. I’d rather have a 15 minute timer with a place holder and have him be a rare spawn.

Maybe this is just my inner EQ player speaking up since I’m very used to the mob camping system from that game, but last night was pretty quiet. We cleared out the one room the Spore King spawns in and two rooms right next door. Before we headed to the zone I had to get some reet faction on my mystic because I’d actually never done the quests before, and the frogs that litter the basement all wanted to claw my eyes out. A quick kill-10 quest later and I was their best friend.

I’ve been working on my Norrathian Museum off and on, and I have been buying books to fill it up. It’s hard to keep track of what I already own and what I still need to purchase, and I’ve set myself with a spending limit because there’s no way I can afford to spend 1-10p per player written book unless it’s something I know is a masterpiece, then I may actually consider it.

I’m still trying to quest along, aiming for those 200aa. They’re going a lot slower now that I’ve hit the 180+ mark as expected. I do have until February, so it’s not as though I’m on any sort of time limit.

Tomorrow I’ll post “GU 53 Part III” which is going to include a deeper look into some odds and ends that are making their way to players later this month. I’m still very excited about this update, and I hope everyone else is too!

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

GU 53 – Part II – Chronomagic

Lets get back to talking about GU 53 and more of the wonderful goodies that are headed to go live some time in September. These changes are already on the test server, so be sure to check them out for yourself if you’d like to explore them.

I already talked about the achievement system that’s being implemented, now lets spend a little time talking about Chronomagic – also known as “auto mentoring”.

There are Erudites set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin and they will allow players level 20+ to speak to them and mentor down from their level in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc). This one pictured on the right is in Qeynos harbor. They do not currently show up if you hit alt+w (waypoints) but you can always ask a guard to locate ‘time’ for you, as it’s part of their name. One thing to keep in mind, if you auto mentor you will not gain the bonus aa that players currently receive from mentoring an actual player. We get quite a large chunk of experience (aa) from doing that, so if it’s important to you you’ll want to keep mentoring little ones in order to keep that bonus. When you speak to the Erudites, they will pop open a window and ask you which level you want to be.

As you can see to mentor has a small cost associated with it, 5 gold and 100 personal status. The experience reduction is based on my characters level (80) so it may show as something different to others.

Now, Kiara had posted under the test notes that there are also 37 new missions that work like TSO missions and send players out around Norrath to battle specific bosses in zones all over in all levels. I couldn’t actually figure out where any of these missions were (the Erudite does not give them out) but as soon as I do or if anyone else knows please feel free to post. I think these missions are a great idea, but I’d also love to see them given to players who are actually mentoring and not just using the auto mentor system. Maybe they work that way I don’t have the faintest idea.

You will stay mentored until it’s canceled (right click on your own name and there is an unmentor option, it’s already in game for regular mentoring). You have to go back to the NPC if you want to lower your level once more.

One really important thing here for the PvP servers – auto mentoring works the same as regular mentoring which means no pvp combat while you are auto mentored. This makes it very dangerous to use on pvp servers.

I decided to check out whether or not you could effectively gray out your own shard instances in TSO because there’s plenty of people who already mentor down to 50, enter a TSO instance, unmentor, and then complete the zones that way. This has been talked about on the forums as being an unintended bug, and players should probably refrain from doing it (as per forum posts) so I was curious if there would be something implemented to prevent it. As of yet, there is not. You can mentor down to 50, pick up your TSO missions (such as the ones in Commonlands) zone into the dungeon, right click your name, unmentor, everything turns gray, and you can complete your shard quests that way. Of course you get no loot, and this only works in specific zones (Commonlands, Lavastorm, Everfrost) and who knows, perhaps something will be implemented that prevents you from unmentoring during the TSO instances.

I think this system will be a great thing to add to game, if you happen to want to take down a raid zone (Courts anyone?) and want everyone to be level appropriate, if you want to go on a named killing binge for aa, if you just want to hang out with your friends in game but don’t want to actually be their exact level. You keep all of your spells, your gear, your aa, and traits, they just reduce in effectiveness, bringing you to ‘around’ the same effectiveness as someone else that level.

It’s a nice way to get players to experience the older content, and to prevent them from out leveling zones (which I have ranted about before in the past as being something I simply don’t like, why on earth would you ever want players to out level your zones). It will give players an option of ‘something else’ to do. I’m not sure how people who are NOT mentoring will feel about this – it can bring around a lot of griefers who are level 80 and rush a zone taking all of the named out from under the little groups who are in there exploring. Most of the time these level 80’s will move on once they’ve finished getting what they want, but I can certainly see a lot of farming lined up for the future. At least this will be an easier way of obtaining appearance gear (there’s some fantastic black chain in Fallen Gate) without having to find someone to mentor, not to mention you could farm the zones 1-20 to get masters that are on smart loot if you’re one of those people who enjoy being ‘fully mastered’

It will be interesting to see how it all works out in the end. Anyone else super excited about this feature besides me?